1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for plant culture and more particularly to such a method and apparatus having great utility in the farming of vine borne crops in such a manner as to facilitate the various operations which must be performed incident thereto while enhancing the character of the crops produced.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
Plant culture, and particularly the farming of vine borne crops, has seen the development of a wide assortment of methods and apparatus for training the plants to grow in a manner most suited to the specific objective at hand. For example, there are particular problems incident to the growing of vine borne crops such as grapes resulting from the manner in which such vines grow. Typically, the vines are grown in rows supported on trellises wherein the crop is supported above the ground and enshrouded by pendant portions of the vines extending downwardly about the crop toward the earth's surface. Such pendant portions, including the canes and foliage thereof, serve a purpose during a portion of the growing cycle in protecting the fruit during its formative stages from heat, insects, dust and the like which might adversely affect the growth of the fruit. Conversely, these pendant portions of the vines are often a great impediment to the performance of other operations required during the growing season such as fumigating, dusting and the like and in harvesting the crop once grown.
Because of these difficulties, a variety of types of practices have been adopted in an effort to overcome the problems involved. Various systems have been employed for trellising the vines in such a manner as to enhance the growth of the crop and to ease the burdens encountered in caring for the crops. The Applicants, for a number of years, have trained grapevines on a trellis wherein the crop is grown in a substantially common zone extending longitudinally of the trellis structure and the pendant portions of the vines are extended upwardly over trellis wires and allowed to trail toward the earth surface outwardly from the zone in which the crop is substantially contained. For example, such systems are shown in the Hiyama U.S. Pat. No. 3,546,856 and the Hiyama et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,922. The prior art is replete with other forms of trellising which seek to achieve in various ways other advantages in plant culture.
Still further, it is known to use what are commonly referred to in the trade as "cane lifters" in conjunction with mechanical grape harvesters to raise pendant portions of vines to a sufficient elevation to expose the fruit for harvesting and then to release the pendant portions so that they fall to their normal attitudes after passage of the harvester therealong.
Notwithstanding the foregoing prior art efforts in plant culture, there has heretofore been no method and apparatus for plant culture capable of controlling and utilizing the pendant portions of plants for beneficial horticultural purposes.
Therefore, it has long been known that it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus for plant culture which overcomes the multiplicity of problems incident to the growing of crops where pendant portions of the plants encapsulate the crop or otherwise interfere with the work operations involved in the growing of such crops and to have a method and apparatus which enhance the quality of the crop produced.